Marc
"Getting through" TF is a relative term. That can be boiled down to playing long enough to hate myself and everyone else. The game does have sort of a high level of difficulty (I wasn't sure to personally chalk it up to awkward keyboard controls on my computer...Sharp X1 isn't a particular user-friendly emulator). Late last night, after reading Gary's "at least you have a well-read Sharp X1 review" comment, I decided to look around the net to see if others had reviewed this game. A couple had, generally as part of a series breakdown. One site's guy played a different port of it and mentioned there (allegedly) were 32 stages and after a few hours, he still hadn't gotten beyond the second because of a difficulty spike between the first and second. And according to him, that port gave you 10 lives (mine had 6, I think) and according to the pics, those tiny red things seemed larger. The concept of this game being 32 levels long actually shocks me. I never know designers could be that evil and sadistic.

WQ, yes, if anything, this review can serve as an education into the Sharp X1. I'd never heard of it until EmP approached me about this game. And I hope to never hear of it again. I have the distinct feeling that EmP decided that just because he retired the "Because We Hate You" contest, that didn't mean he'd have to retire the concept...and I became the beneficiary of a lot of pent-up hate. It would be a small consolation to know that he had to play TF II, but that game has a couple of really awesome stages to at least blunt the misery. I had nothing like that!